DoubleLive78 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3839 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin
| Message 1 of 27 29 May 2014 at 10:36pm | IP Logged |
What are the biggest obstacles or challenges you face in language learning?
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Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5763 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 27 29 May 2014 at 10:49pm | IP Logged |
Motivation. And, making mistakes. :P
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mariya Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5637 days ago 7 posts - 12 votes Speaks: French, Russian Studies: German, Italian, English*
| Message 3 of 27 29 May 2014 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
The biggest setback was reaching a plateau in my language-learning process. When you start out, rapid gains are
made in language acquisition, but are then replaced by minimal improvements once you reach a certain level), since
language learning is a logarithmic process.
As a result, boredom can set in quickly if you're teaching yourself the language, like I was, because resources to
challenge you are few and far between once you've reached an advanced level (unless you can travel to a place
where the language is spoken, which I imagine would present a bigger challenge than simply watching
movies/reading books/etc).
Edited by mariya on 29 May 2014 at 11:48pm
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Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5097 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German
| Message 4 of 27 30 May 2014 at 12:35am | IP Logged |
I struggle with not wanting to hit the books so to speak. I have not problem watching a
favorite show or reading a novel, but I always find an excuse not do learn vocab lists or
study grammar rules.
But more than that I struggle with my dislike of human interaction. I want to speak
language but I often hate the actual talking part or at best I only do it sporadically
now.
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Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4079 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German
| Message 5 of 27 30 May 2014 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
Mental resources. I wish I had better memory, and better mental stamina against fatigue
from studying.
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shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4441 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French
| Message 6 of 27 30 May 2014 at 4:56am | IP Logged |
Finding your strengths & weaknesses which would determine your approach to learning. Getting
yourself into at least 1h learning every day and tracking your progress.
At first we follow phrase books and learning materials and tend to move up the learning curve very
slowly in a snail pace. The other day I was watching a short video by Steve Kaufmann the polyglot in
Vancouver, Canada on language learning. He suggested the way language instruction is taught in
Canada it would take forever for English speakers to become fluent in French if they ever do. The people
who are giving the lessons in elementary & high schools are satisfied with the status quo instead of
finding new ways to get people to become bilingual.
Like the way you'd learn French in the beginning with some basic greetings: "Bonjour, je m'appelle"
("Hello, my name is") sort of thing. Once you get to a certain point, you don't always start a conversation
with the same standard greeting. And as you learn more words & phrases, you'd be able to substitute
different words & phrases such as: "J'habite ici depuis 5 ans" (out of a textbook in French). For a
common phrase: "I've been living here for 5 years" you can easily replace "ici" with "à Paris" or change
the number 5 to another number sort of thing.
The biggest challenge would be how to make the leap from the classroom & learning materials into the
real world where you're comfortable conducting yourself socially in conversations.
Edited by shk00design on 30 May 2014 at 5:01am
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sabotai Senior Member United States Joined 5879 days ago 391 posts - 489 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese, Korean, French
| Message 7 of 27 30 May 2014 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
My biggest problem is that I get distracted easily. I can get lost in something and lose a whole day to it. I'll load up Skyrim just to play for 30 minutes before I get to studying languages, or I start reading a novel - "Just one chapter, then I'll study German", or "just 1 episode of a Korean Variety show and then it's time to hit the books"...the next thing I know, several hours have passed and it's time for bed.
And when that happens 2 or 3 days in a row, it's a struggle to get back into my daily routine.
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tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4704 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 8 of 27 30 May 2014 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
Probably not enough contact with native speakers in a reasonably natural environment.
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